When you’re creating and curating a news site, design is everything. Readers want to get straight to the information they’re looking for. They don’t want unclear navigation or a visually overwhelming interface to get in their way. That’s why choosing the right theme for the job is critical; after all, there are plenty of poorly designed news themes out there.
The specific features to look for when picking a news theme will vary with your site’s purpose, but you’ll certainly want to choose a theme that prioritizes readability and ease of navigation. You’ll also want to make sure that the theme is optimized for search engines since readers want only the most relevant, up-to-date news content. Additionally, easy support for ads is a must if you’re planning to monetize your site.
To help you make the right decision, we’ve compiled a list of the best WordPress news themes out there. Let’s get started!
1. Sydney
Your theme should reflect the tone of your publication. If you have a serious news site, you’ll want a clean and professional design, like the News demo by Sydney.
Sydney is a highly customizable theme. You can change anything from colors and typography to post layouts and header styles. These options enable you to create pages that align with the voice of your news site.
The News demo is built with Elementor and comes with a lot of useful features for your online publication, including a news ticker widget and a selection of “related posts” options. There’s also a subscribe form to help you build a base of loyal readers. With the premium version, you’ll get post sharing features, pagination options, last update date, and more widgets.
So if you need a news theme with plenty of customization options and blogging features, Sydney might be the best solution for you!
2. The Fox
The Fox is a news theme with a clean and minimal design.
If you want to create a site to rival professional online news outlets, then The Fox will ensure the design of your site doesn’t let you down. The overall style of The Fox can be described as modern, clean, and uncluttered. If your main priority is delivering a user-friendly experience to your visitors, then The Fox deserves a place on your theme shortlist.
In addition to ensuring your site has the right type of design, The Fox also provides you with lots of features to enhance your news site. One of those features is the live post functionality that lets you create a page that can be updated in real-time, such as those used for reporting on breaking news stories or sports matches. If you’ve ever visited sites like the BBC, New York Times, or CNN, you might be familiar with this feature.
3. SmartMag
SmartMag is a powerful and highly versatile news WordPress theme.
With a huge list of features, SmartMag is an impressive WordPress theme for creating news websites. As this theme has been a popular option for creating content-rich websites for a few years now, it’s not only amassed a large user base but has also grown in terms of the features that you get access to and the types of news sites it’s suitable for.
Just taking a quick look at the changelog reveals how much this theme has been upgraded and improved since its initial release. However, if you really want to get to know SmartMag better, viewing the website demos that come with this theme is a great place to start. Doing so lets you test drive the 15 ready-made news website demos that you can import into your WordPress dashboard when you purchase SmartMag.
The demos do cover a wide range of news sites, making this a theme that should appeal to a wide audience. Some examples of those demos include designs for sites that cover gadgets, the latest tech news, financial updates, and sports to name just a few. The demos all look very different from each other, rather than just being slight variations on a core design.
Thanks to the flexibility of SmartMag, you can easily repurpose the demos. Therefore, if you’re creating a travel news site but like the look of the sports demo, for example, it won’t take much time or effort to adjust it so that it works well for your project. You can also customize the demos even further, using the supported Elementor page builder plugin to personalize them as much as you want.
The demos aren’t the only reason to choose SmartMag, though. As mentioned, this theme has lots of features to help your website become a success. Some examples include the large library of content elements that you can add to your pages to enhance them, the social sharing tools to help your content go viral, and the autoloading of posts to keep visitors engaged for longer.
SmartMag is a great example of an advanced news WordPress theme that’s also easy to use.
4. Swyft
Are you looking for a sleek theme with a less traditional “news” format? If that’s the case, Swyft could be the right option for you.
This WordPress theme has modern layouts with bold sans-serif fonts. The Lifestyle demo was designed specifically for news sites, and you’ll get a variety of layouts for blog feeds, featured posts, and other sections. Plus, you can customize the header, footer, typography, colors, and other elements to align with your brand aesthetic.
Swyft comes with a night mode that visitors can enable to read your posts more comfortably in the dark. It also integrates seamlessly with social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. This way, readers can easily share your content on these channels.
Overall, Swyft is an ideal theme for building a simple news site with interactive features.
5. Newspaper
Often the best themes are the ones designed for a specific purpose, which take the needs of a certain type of user into account. Newspaper is such a theme – it’s built intentionally for news and magazine websites.
With over 85,000 happy customers and counting, Newspaper is accessible to inexperienced users, while still providing plenty of professional-level options. It’s a mobile-optimized theme that’s fast, uncluttered, and prioritizes performance and functionality. Plus, it can take the strain of lots of content and high-resolution images while keeping load times down.
The intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes the design process just as quick – especially with over 50 pre-built demos to choose from. If you’d like to dive into creating your own layouts, you can do so with either of two bundled page builder plugins – tagDiv Composer or WPBakery – and the frontend CSS editor. Moreover, creating articles and author, category, or search pages has never been easier than now, with the use of the tagDiv Cloud Library which gathers hundreds of pre-designed templates. Just import a template and customize it with the tagDiv Composer builder, right on the frontend!
In addition, there are dozens of news-oriented widgets for weather, social media, exchange markets, and more. There’s also a built-in rating system, as well as the option to embed videos from around the web. Finally, Newspaper is fully optimized for Google AdSense and comes programmed with a system that auto-detects ads and makes them immediately responsive.
We like Newspaper, and we think you will too! This modern, engaging theme might just be what you’re looking for if you want a fast and responsive website to publish content to multiple online channels.
6. Katen
If you run an online, modern publication, you’ll want a theme with a clean and contemporary look. This is where Katen comes in.
Katen offers six pre-built websites, each with a minimalist and professional design. It comes with lots of Customizer options for editing the header, footer, and other layouts, choosing your preferred color scheme and typography, and more. Plus, the Katen demos are built with Elementor, so you can use this powerful page builder to make more advanced customizations.
With Katen, you’ll also get access to various layouts to help make your articles stand out. These include formats for posts containing video and audio elements, as well as different styles for your article archives. Plus, you’ll have access to beautiful social media buttons and an Instagram feed widget to help increase engagement.
Katen is the ideal theme if you want a sleek look for your online magazine!
7. Neeon
Neeon is a news magazine theme that is worth checking out if you’re looking for a lot of customization options.
This flexible, modern theme is built with a clean and engaging layout that’s suitable for a wide range of websites. It includes pages and sections with multiple styling options as well as various homepage demos, category pages, and post detail pages. It also comes with several header styles that you can even further customize.
Powered by the Elementor page builder plugin, the Neeon theme is incredibly user-friendly. With over 15 custom Elementor addons and more than 45 layouts, personalizing and designing your site is quick and easy. This theme also includes a one-click demo importer tool.
If you want a simple, straightforward theme for your news or magazine site, Neeon may not be the best choice. However, it’s an excellent option if you want a high level of design and customization control.
8. Zeen
When you’re running a news website, you need a theme such as Zeen that offers both an aesthetically-pleasing design and well-optimized functionality.
This next-generation news and magazine theme offers a beautiful style that is more up-to-date and sleek than what you’ll get from most alternatives. It includes 30 premium pre-built sites and can be used for everything from personal blogs to full-fledged online magazines.
Zeen is designed to work with WooCommerce, making it easy to build a shop for your news site. This theme is highly customizable and optimized for both speed and SEO. It also comes with features that are unique and largely specific to news sites, such as areas for sponsored posts, various advertising locations, and clickable background ads.
If you’re looking for a fast, smooth, and contemporary news theme, Zeen might be the right fit.
9. TheGem
When it comes to building a news website, layout is critical. With so much content to present, you need a clear way to navigate it all, without confusing your readers. Fortunately, TheGem has you covered.
TheGem has a stylish and modern feel, combined with a host of additional features. With plenty of navigation options, as well as header and footer customization, you have the freedom to create a layout that matches your unique requirements. In this way, you’ll be able to feature your news content for maximum engagement.
Furthermore, TheGem is easy to use and bundled with the WPBakery Page Builder plugin for seamless design. It includes over 400 demo layouts, flexible page creation options, a powerful admin interface, and much more besides.
If you’re looking for a flexible option with the power to build your news site to an exacting specification, TheGem is sure to make your shortlist!
10. Fonix
Sometimes it can be difficult to find a theme that fits your niche. Fortunately, Fonix is suitable for all kinds of different publications, including food, travel, lifestyle, and tech blogs.
With Fonix, you’ll get a broad selection of demos, including options designed specifically for online newspapers. Plus, you can customize the header and footer, create a mega menu, and change other aspects of your site with Elementor. The theme also comes with an advanced query builder for widgets, which means you can fully control which elements are displayed on your site.
When it comes to layouts, you’re spoilt for choice! Fonix gives you access to 30 beautiful grid layouts, 40+ single post hero layouts, five pagination types, and more. Additionally, you can make your own templates for blog archives, related posts, and more.
If you want a flexible and highly customizable theme, look no further than Fonix!
11. Qoxag
Qoxag is a contemporary-looking theme that can help present your content in a clean, professional manner.
This multipurpose theme can be used for news, magazine, and blog websites. It includes powerful theme options, and the demos have been built with the Elementor page builder plugin.
You can choose from a variety of homepage variations and use the one-click demo importer tool to get your site up and running in no time. The 15+ premade demos include layouts for newspaper, travel, and food review sites.
Qoxag is also a fast and lightweight theme. It’s SEO-optimized and adheres to Google’s Core Web Vitals best practices. Qoxag has an A performance grade from GTmetrix.
If you’re looking for a lightning-fast yet flexible theme for your news or magazine site, Qoxag might be the perfect solution.
12. PenNews
When building a news website, it’s essential to create a home page that showcases a variety of visually-striking articles. However, many news themes aren’t designed with minimalism in mind. With PenNews, you can avoid this pitfall.
Out of the box, the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin lets you arrange your site elements with ease via a drag-and-drop interface. Also bundled with PenNews is the Convert Plug plugin, which is extremely useful for growing and managing your email subscriber list.
What separates PenNews from the competition is the huge scope at your disposal for layout customization. You’re given the option to play around with more than 40 content block styles, over ten grid layouts, as well as a broad array of custom video playlist and gallery styles.
Regardless of whether your news site is focused on a specific niche, PenNews is great value for money, and should become part of your theme shortlist!
13. Foxiz
Your site’s design should reflect the tone and voice of your publication. Foxiz is a flexible theme that can be used for serious news sites as well as more conversational ones.
Foxiz gives you the choice of over 85 demos, from health news sites to tabloid-style publications. The theme is fully compatible with Elementor. It also comes with a Theme Options panel that controls your site’s styling, typography, and color scheme.
What makes Foxiz stand out is its wealth of monetization features. For example, the theme integrates with the Simple Membership plugin to help you set up paywalled content and sell subscriptions. It also supports Google AdSense, enabling you to place adverts anywhere across your site.
Overall, Foxiz can help you create a news site that reflects your brand and voice, plus start making money through your content.
14. Prime News
One of the cornerstones of the internet is the freely available news on practically every subject imaginable. This means news sites are big business. However, without a theme to match your niche, such as Prime News, you might fail to capitalize on your readers’ interest.
When it comes to news sites, minimalism often takes a back seat. This is understandable, given the natural desire to pack every pixel with content. However, Prime News manages to include plenty of features without cluttering up the screen.
For example, there are both slide-in and more traditional navigation options, image sliders, ticker bars, videos, ad space, and much more. Despite this, the home page doesn’t come across as overwhelming. In addition, all of these elements can be customized either via the Live Customizer or the dedicated Theme Options panel.
Overall, Prime News isn’t at all one-dimensional, despite its initial appearance. Regardless of the type of news site you’re building, you should be able to use this theme to sculpt an engaging, captivating, and engrossing final product.
15. Jannah
When it comes to news reporting, reputation is everything. Although it should be based largely on your journalistic efforts, your website’s visuals also have a part to play. Thankfully, there’s a theme that can help you stand out – Jannah.
A primary concern of this theme’s developers was clearly to help you get your site up and running quickly. There is an absolute wealth of demo templates to choose from – each installed with just one click – encompassing a wide variety of niches. To customize your layouts further (or to design your own from scratch), you can turn to the built-in drag-and-drop page builder.
While many other themes stop there, Jannah offers some thoughtful additions that could be a deal-maker. For example, there’s an option to automatically remove duplicate content – without this feature, you could see a negative impact on your search engine optimization (SEO). In addition, this theme includes desktop notification functionality, so your regular visitors can get breaking news without having to navigate to your website.
If you were to casually skim the demos and sales page, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Jannah is just another ‘me too’ theme. However, it includes some very useful features, all wrapped up in a stylish design. Overall, Jannah is a theme we wholeheartedly recommend!
16. MagPlus
When you’re building a news website, you want it to be fast, responsive, and flexible. Users need to be able to navigate from article to article smoothly, and you’ll want access to plenty of features that can help you improve their experience.
Fortunately, MagPlus is here to help you out. This theme is designed specifically for news sites and similar niches, and that focus pays off. It’s well-optimized for mobile devices and boasts very fast load times. What’s more, MagPlus is translation-ready and integrates easily with AdSense so you can monetize your articles.
To help you design a site that grabs readers’ attention and encourages them to stick around, there are lots of options when it comes to tweaking its appearance. MagPlus comes with many layouts to get you started, and over 30 templates that are suited to a wide range of subjects. There are also a variety of header and article layouts, sliders, widgets, and other pre-built elements.
If you want to build a fast, stylish news site quickly, MagPlus has your back. With this theme, you’ll be up and running in no time, and your visitors will have an excellent experience every time.
17. Voice
When browsing through the Voice theme, the word that perhaps most prominently comes to mind is “elegance.” The combination of a flat, boxy design with bold colors creates a pleasing effect – perhaps not particularly artistic, but certainly pleasing to the eye.
As with some other themes in this collection, Voice offers color-coded categories, which can be practically useful when your site publishes articles on a wide range of topics. The full-width manual slider with subtle CSS3 effects on the homepage does a great job of featuring a variety of stories, and the attractive visual experience continues through to the article pages.
The typography – arguably all-important on a news theme – is not perhaps as striking as one would hope. In a theme that tends to exude style far more often than not, the fonts seem a little unimaginative and plain. Having said that, Voice offers simple font customization, so if you have the time and inclination to find your own striking font combination, you can impart your own style to the design.
18. Networker
Networker is a WordPress theme for creating tech news websites and online magazines.
If you want to launch a website where you can publish reviews of gadgets and similar products as well as share the latest tech news, then Networker has lots of features you’re sure to find useful. The six website demos that come with Networker are each focused on a different type of tech news, including designs aimed at apps, startups, and creative news, to name just a few. However, as this theme is very flexible, you don’t have to use the demos for their recommended purposes. If there’s any aspect of tech news that you’d like to cover, there’s a high chance that this theme and its templates would work well.
Each demo has its own set of templates for publishing individual articles, giving you lots of choices each time you add a new article to your site. There are also many different archive templates to make use of, too. Choosing where to display the sidebar or whether to display one at all can be decided on an individual post and page basis. All of the prebuilt content of Networker has been optimized for smartphone devices, ensuring that your audience can quickly and easily access your content, no matter how they are viewing your site.
In addition to the large library of templates, Networker has many useful features to make your news site more user-friendly. Some examples of these features include the ability to autoload the next article once a visitor gets to the end of the current piece of content they are reading, a live search tool to make it easier for readers to find what they’re looking for, and social media integration to help you display more useful content on your site. AdSense integration is included too, giving you an easy way to monetize your site.
Networker also comes with a selection of custom blocks for the latest version of the WordPress editor.
19. ZoxPress
Many news websites share the same cluttered look because their themes give them little flexibility to offer much else. ZoxPress, on the other hand, comes with a streamlined design and modern features to keep your readers engaged.
This theme gives you access to 100 different layout and style combinations to suit any niche. You can install one of many pre-built demos with one click, and customize them with various header options and over 900 Google fonts. You can also choose from stunning post layouts to make your articles stand out.
In addition, ZoxPress enables you to place in-line parallax ads that will appear as the user scrolls down the page. It even comes with a night mode option, which is easier on your readers’ eyes. You can also enable automatic loading for your posts, and monitor the results with Google Analytics to gauge your audience’s interests.
Overall, if you are looking for a multipurpose news theme with reader-friendly features, ZoxPress could be an excellent choice. This fully responsive design can captivate your audience and keep them focused on your content.
20. JNews
JNews is a high-quality newspaper and magazine theme. It can help you present your content-heavy site in a clean, professional manner.
The powerful theme comes with over 150 home page demos. The templates include options for nearly every news niche you can think of, including sports, technology, lifestyle, fitness, business, and much more. It’s also fully compatible with major page builder plugins, including WPBakery and Elementor.
In addition to being packed with helpful publishing features, JNews is optimized for speed and performance. The code adheres to Google Core Web Vital best practices, so you don’t have to worry about this theme slowing down your site. It also provides tools for generating revenue, including advertisement options with Google Ads and AdSense, paid post submissions, and sponsored posts.
If you’re looking for a theme that can help you turn your newspaper website into a lucrative, content machine, JNews is worth checking out.
21. Herald
Herald is a business-like, straightforward news theme. While it’s less elegant than some of the other news themes available, it manages to pack a lot of content onto the page while still being easy to navigate.
Like many of the themes in this collection, Herald offers a large amount of design customization. It features modules that enable more than 500 different layout combinations, as well as a customizable header. You can easily color code categories, create multi-page posts, and enable infinite scroll. A related posts feature is built-in, and you have the option to create posts that feature audio, video, images, or galleries.
Monetization is straightforward, with predefined locations for ads on home pages, archive pages, and posts. Herald also ships with a Theme Translator that enables you to create translations of all parts of your website in the Theme Options panel.
22. Soledad
Soledad is a unique, feature-rich theme that can be an excellent choice for news-related websites.
The multipurpose theme boasts a vibrant, bold design that is both high-performing and versatile. It comes with almost 7,000 home page demos, and over 40 custom Elementor and WPBakery page builder elements. It also includes a header and footer builder that makes creating and customizing your site quick and easy.
Soledad presents a dark layout that has multiple dedicated ad spaces. It lets you choose from over 1,000 sliders and blog combinations, as well as a library of gallery styles. You can make your content stand out in multiple ways, including lightbox images in single posts, featured video backgrounds, and multiple post templates for different stories.
If you’re looking for a news theme with a lot of variety, Soledad could be the right fit for you.
23. Newspaper Kolyoum
News websites don’t need to be flashy, they need to be informative. You need a theme that enables you to share breaking news with your audience and keep them engaged — enter Kolyoum.
You get a sober design with Kolyoum that focuses on the news. The theme makes excellent use of multiple grid layouts that highlight your article’s featured images and pull readers where you’d like them to go. Out of the box, Kolyoum includes designs for tech, fashion, and sports news sites, among many other options.
Kolyoum also comes with several pre-built blocks you can use to add key sections to your pages, including featured news, galleries, and comments sections. There are six premium plugins bundled in, including WPBakery Page Builder and Slider Revolution, which gives you even more control over your website.
In a nutshell, Kolyoum will be a good fit if you need a versatile theme that doesn’t hamper your ability to publish breaking news as it happens. It’s a worthy contender that deserves a place on your shortlist.
24. Papr
A lot of news agencies are stuck in the past with boring, outdated websites. As compelling as the news might be, your website needs to offer a stellar user experience to keep readers around. Papr hopes to fulfill that promise.
There are nine unique home page layouts and multiple options for post archives included in this theme. The designs make excellent use of negative space and give you a canvas on which to realize your vision. The result is a news website that doesn’t feel cluttered and provides readability.
Papr is fully compatible with the bundled Elementor page builder plugin. This means you can easily modify any of its pre-built layouts or build new pages of your own using the theme’s elements. Plus, it works seamlessly with WooCommerce out of the box, which makes it a great option for online stores.
Overall, we can recommend Papr if you’re looking for a news theme that’s both modern and easy to use. It’s an ideal theme for up-and-coming news organizations, although you’ll likely stick with it for time to come.
25. Sahifa
With hundreds of design and functionality options, Sahifa is without a doubt a fully-featured theme. Unfortunately, the plethora of included features takes precedence over the theme’s actual design, which is quite busy and visually overwhelming by default.
Despite this, Sahifa is still worth considering for a news site. A Custom Admin panel allows you to edit all theme options in one central location, and a drag-and-drop page builder is available for customizing the home page. Compatibility with the WPML plugin also makes Sahifa translation-ready.
Distinctive features include sticky sidebars, a widget that displays the current weather, and support for Ajax Live Search. Eight default skins are included, although, as mentioned above, their default design is a little too busy for our tastes.
26. NewsPlus
NewsPlus is a sleek WordPress theme with a full, structured design.
A slight problem arises with the NewsPlus design — even though all the elements in the design are very structured, they are not very distinct from each other. More pronounced lines separating various links and post summaries are necessary when so many different posts are placed on the front page. That aside, however, NewsPlus is as good as any on this list from a designer’s perspective.
More impressive is the capability NewsPlus has to offer: both full-screen and boxed options are provided, as are two locations for sticky navigation. Optimized 100% for SEO, the theme comes with proportional layout scaling, translation-ready files, two custom post formats, Flex Slider, and a visual shortcode generator.
Six custom widgets, an Ajax contact form with field validation, and social sharing integration are all included.
